Welcome to our 'Buying a Secondhand Piano' Guide

This free guide has been produced by professional UK piano tuners / technicians with many years' experience and will help you avoid the many pitfalls encountered when searching for and buying a used grand or upright piano.

Our website details the workings of a piano, what to look out for when viewing secondhand pianos and how to easily identify potential problems or defects within an instrument. After all, repairing a piano is certainly a job for a professional tuner/technician, and due to the complexity of these instruments, repairs are more often than not very time-consuming, and therefore quite costly.

We cannot guarantee that the piano you buy will be a good one, and there really is no substitute for having a professional tuner check the piano out for you, but armed with the information within these pages, we believe you will be in a position to make a solid, informed decision.

If we succeed in helping you to find a good used piano that doesn't need expensive repairs and that will last many years, we'd love to hear from you! If you do find our site helpful, please give us the thumbs up on Facebook, or plus1 us on Google. Thankyou...

Buying a Used PianoLike a car, a piano is essentially a machine, and as the instrument matures in years, things will start to wear out. Although it is quite possible to recondition any piano back to its' best condition, this is a time-consuming and costly process that is normally only carried out on very fine quality instruments.

The only real exception to this would be in the reconditioning of a piano which has sentimental value, where the money spent on the work may well exceed the value of the piano after it has been fully restored.

A decent piano can be found for only a few pounds, on eBay for instance, or you may be lucky enough to find one for free. But to buy a used piano with confidence, thorough visual checks should be made over the whole instrument to ensure you don't end up with a worthless piano that will just keep costing you money to keep it in a playable condition.

So, what exactly do you look for when buying a used piano? ....

Basic Anatomy of a Piano

This diagram of an exploded view of the grand piano illustrates how any piano, grand or upright, (to a large extent), fits together to become arguably the most powerful acoustic musical instrument that man has made.

In the manufacturing process, first the soundboard is fitted into the empty case. The soundboard is a large wooden diaphragm which is forced to vibrate by the strings, therefore increasing their volume.

In front of the soundboard on a grand, or above the soundboard on an upright, is the pinblock, (or wrestplank). This is where the tuning pins will be positioned, and is one of the more mysterious parts of a piano to most, as it is usually hidden, unless the piano is taken entirely apart.

The cast iron frame, (sometimes called a plate, or harp), is then fitted over the top of the soundboard and pinblock, providing a strong and solid platform to accomodate the 220+ high tension strings.

The final piece of the instrument is the complicated mechanism known as the 'Action'. This is the engine of the piano, and acts like an extension to the pianists' fingers, ultimately making contact with the strings via the hammers, thus producing the sound.

Top TipsJust because someone may be able to play the piano doesn't necessarily mean they are knowledgeable about buying one.Look at several pianos so that you can get an idea of what your money will buy.Don't buy a piano just because it's cheap, as you may well only be buying firewood!

PIANO GLOSSARY

ACTION - The complicated mechanism that, when the keys are struck, causes the hammers to strike the strings, and provides the dampening of the sound when the keys are released.

AGRAFFE - A Brass fitting with a hole or holes, through which pass the strings of the middle and bass sections. The string vibrates freely between the agraffe and the nearest bridge pin. An agraffe bar is used for the treble.

BACK FRAME - The foundation, consisting of top and side-members and back posts, upon which other basic components such as pinblock, (wrestplank), soundboard and frame depend for proper support and stability.

BALANCE RAIL - The middle, hard maple rail of the key frame, where the balance pins are set, which are the fulcrum points of the keys.

BASS STRINGS - The strings of the lowest 30 or so notes of the piano. They are wrapped with one or two layers of pure copper wire of several sizes, depending on the note or pitch they are to produce.

BRIDGES - These are made of hard maple and are positioned on the front side of the soundboard. The bass and treble bridges transfer the vibrations of the strings to the soundboard, resulting in tone and volume.

BRIDGE PINS - Steel pins inserted at crucially specific points along both edges of the treble and bass bridges. They keep the strings in the exact position required, and also give the strings side-bearing, enabling stability and clarity of tone.

BOTTOM BOARD - As you may guess from the name, this is the bottom of an upright piano. The fixings and workings of the pedals, ( or Trapwork) are attached to this, also the wheels or castors.

BOTTOM DOOR - The panel on the front of the piano which extends from the pedals to the bottom of the key bed.

CAPO D'ASTRO, or CAPOTES, or CAPASSO BAR - A heavy metal bar that bridges the strings just before they coil off at the tuning pins. It keeps the strings in place, doing the same job as agraffes.

CAPSTAN SCREW - Specially shaped brass wood-screws, located near the back end of the keys, providing adjustable contact points between the keys and the action.

CENTER PINS - These are located at various points in the piano action at which the many movable parts are hinged or centered. Their proper fitting to the felt bushings is necessary for the smooth, free and quiet functioning of the action. Each note generally has between 4 and 8 of these.

CLAVIER - The proper name for the piano keyboard.

CONSOLE - The name sometimes given to an upright piano which is usually around 39 to 41 inches in height.

CROWN - The slight forward curvature of the soundboard.

DAMPERS - Felt covered pieces of wood which rest against the strings in their normal position. The damper is lifted from the string when a key is struck. When the key is released, the damper returns to the string, thus 'dampening', or causing the string to stop vibrating, thus sounding.

DIP - The distance that a key can be depressed.

ESCAPEMENT - The pianos' unique mechanism that allows the hammer to 'escape' after a string has been struck, so leaving the string to vibrate. Double escapement in a grand allows a hammer to strike a second time without waiting for the key to rise to its normal position of rest.

FALLBOARD - The swinging cover for the keys. The European fallboard is in one piece, whereas many American fallboards are made in two folding pieces.

FRAME - The skeleton of cast iron on which the strings are stretched. Also known as a Plate, or Harp.

GRAND - A piano that sits on 3 legs, or trusses, with the strings running horizontally to the ground.

HAMMER - The part of the action mechanism that strikes the strings to produce the tone; a wooden shaft with a compressed felt tip.

HARPSICHORD - An early keyboard musical instrument, and the predecessor of the piano. The strings are made to vibrate by being plucked by plectra or picks, often made from a raven's quill, or leather.

HITCH PIN - a metal pin inserted directly into the frame to hold one end of a string; the other end is attached to the tuning pin.

KEY BED - The base, or foundation, upon which the key frame and keys rest.

KEY FRAME - A wooden frame, consisting of front and center-rails of hard maple, and key pins. It provides for the proper location, support and spacing of the keys.

KEY SLIP - Part of the case, the strip of wood that runs in front of the natural or white keys, and usually attached to the key bed by wood-screws.

LYRE - The lower central member of a grand piano; it carries the pedals and pedal rods.

RIBS - Make of Sitka spruce, the ribs help to keep the proper curvature in the soundboard, and give the soundboard extra strength.

SOUNDBOARD - The softwood, usually spruce, diaphragm which vibrates from the pulsating strings, and amplifies the tone.

SPINET - The name sometimes given to an upright piano which is usually around 36 to 39 inches in height.

SYMPATHETIC VIBRATION - A vibration of an object independently in response to tone sounded by a musical instrument, of which the object is a part, or that of another instrument. Many things can vibrate sympathetically in a room when a piano is played.

STUDIO PIANOS - Specially designed and made for use in schools and universities. Ranging from 45 to 51 inches in height, it is the tallest piano a professor or teacher can sit at and still see the students or audience.

TIMBRE - The character or quality of a musical sound or voice as distinct from its pitch and intensity: eg. a trumpet mutes with different timbres. Or the quality of musical tone; light, dark, sharp, dull, thin, thick, warm, cold, smooth, rough,etc.

TONE - A sound having a definite pitch, quality, volume and duration. In a piano, tone is dependent on the quality of manufacture, and of materials used in its' construction. A pianos' size will also have a direct influence on tonal quality.

TOUCH - The feeling the pianist gets through the keys whilst playing, or rather, how heavy/light/smooth, etc. the action feels through the keys.

TUNING PIN - A metal pin inserted into the pinblock, made of a fine hardened steel, precision-sized, threaded and often blued.

TRAP WORK - All pedals, springs, levers, bearings to do with activating damper-rods, bass-sustaining, full-sustaining and soft pedals of the piano.

TRUSSES - The legs of a grand piano.

UPRIGHT - A piano constructed with strings in a vertical position, also known as a Vertical piano.

VOICING - The term used to express the different methods of obtaining a particular quality of tone. The adjustments involves the hardening or softening of the hammer felt and is performed so that the tone of each note is uniform throughout. Voicing is generally done by a piano technician every few years to revitalize the worn felts, and improve the tone.

Top TipDon’t always take it for granted that if a friend or colleague is selling their piano, it is a good instrument. If the piano turns out to be useless, not only may you be out of pocket but your friendship could be tested too!